Episode 1482: Multisport Sabermetrics Exchange (Diversity and Inclusion)
Date January 3, 2020 Summary In the final (for now) installment of a special, seven-episode series on the past, present, and future of advanced analysis in non-baseball sports, Ben Lindbergh talks to sabermetric pioneer Sherri Nichols about her trailblazing work in baseball analysis and then data scientist and sports entrepreneur Tiffany Kelly (41:02) about her experience in the sports analytics field, touching on their contributions to rec.sport.baseball, Retrosheet, and ESPN and the need for greater diversity and representation in the industry (plus a postscript from Ben on Scott Boras and insights and takeaways from the entire Multisport Sabermetrics Exchange series). Topics * Interview with Sherri Nichols * Sherri's experiences growing up with baseball * Sherri's educational background * Early baseball analytic writing and data work * Project Scoresheet * Difficulty of gathering data * Development of defensive average * Demographics of early analysts * Sherri's experience as one of few female voices in early baseball analytics * Involvment with Retrosheet * Nichols' Law of Catcher Defense * Development of the Andrew File System * Interview with Tiffany Kelly * Tiffany's career path and educational background * Lack of diversity in statistics and computer science programs * Interview process with NBA teams * Tiffany's work with ESPN Stats and Info * Tiffany's current work and future goals * How to get better representation in analytics * Ben's takeaways from the Multisport Sabermetrics Exchange * Variance by sport in analytics implementation * Importance of public data * Impact of Moneyball on other sports * Episode 1481 follow-up: famous non walk-off home runs * Scott Boras' predictions for 2020 Intro Tegan and Sara, "Come On" Interstitial The Sensations, "Let Me In" Outro Nas, "Represent" Notes * Gender and racial diversity in MLB front offices has been discussed several times on Effectively Wild including Episode 1218 (interview with Christina Kahrl) and Episode 1392 (interview with Sam Schultz). * Sherri was a Reds' fan growing up. Her first introduction to baseball statistics was keeping score for her brother's little league team. * While in graduate school at Carnegie Mellon for computer science, Sherri found a group of peers interested in baseball who had a similar interest in analytics. * Sherri developed a defensive average metric very similar to the more advanced ones used today. Her data uncovered players like Carney Lansford who had a reputation as good fielders because they were constantly diving for balls, when in fact they were diving so much because they had poor range. * Looking back Sherri says that she sees the impact being one of the only female voices in the room had on her. However at the time she says it was "like the air around me". * Sherri was the first vice president and treasurer of Retrosheet. She was adamant that the data from the site should be free. None of the leadership at Retrosheet aimed to have a career in baseball and making the data free made teams and reporters more willing to share old scoresheets. * The Nichols' Law of Catcher Defense states that a catcher's offensive skill is inversely proportional to their defensive reputation. * Sherri observed that Mickey Tettleton was considered a poor hitter but a good defensive catcher when he played for the A's. After he went to the Orioles, his hitting improved greatly, and became known as a good hitter but a bad defensive catcher. Nothing changed about his catching, but suddenly he was deemed a bad catcher. She realized that nobody knew how to evaluate defense, so they assumed that a bad-hitting catcher must be good at defense and vice versa. * While a senior in high school Tiffany was able to shadow the public relations staff at the New Orleans Hornets (now Pelicans) for a game. She ended up spending a lot of the game with the statistics staff and was amazed at the complete access they had to the organization. * After college Tiffany's primary goal was to get a job with a NBA team. She spent a year interviewing for positions with five different teams. She ultimately got a position with ESPN Stats and Info. * Tiffany says that at the time she was the only female of color in the ESPN Stats and Info department which employed several hundred people. * Tiffany highlights the need for human resources administrators to have a presence in team front offices. Often they are completely separated which prevents equity in hiring processes for front office positions. Links * Effectively Wild Episode 1482: Multisport Sabermetrics Exchange (Diversity and Inclusion) * The Sabermetric Movement's Forgotten Foremother by Ben Lindbergh * Sherri Nichols' Impact on Baseball Analytics by Austin Leung * Sherri Nichols: The Godmother of Sabermetrics by Matt Wein * Sherri's writing about defensive average in 1990 * rec.sport.baseball archive * You really should know what the Andrew File System is by Bob Brown * A career in sports analytics busts another barrier for African-American women by Tiffany Kelly * Baltimore students used analytics to get Morgan State basketball star Marvin Webster into Hall of Fame by Tiffany Kelly * Sports Analytics Club Program * The Yankees Hired a Hitting Coach. Her Name Is Rachel by Lindsay Berra * Jalen Rose Has A Problem With Basketball Analytics by Isaac Chotiner * Jalen Rose interview with NPR about analytics comments * The MLB Racial and Gender Report Card by Richard Lapchick * Major League Baseball Racial & Gender Report Card by The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport * MLB Diversity Fellowship Program * 2020 predictions and thoughts from sports industry figures by Richard Deitsch, Daniel Kaplan, and Bill Shea Category:Episodes Category:Guest Episodes